With Intel's recent release of its dual core processor the race is on for share
of this new market. Let's first take a good look at just what dual core is and
what it brings to the computing experience. Dual core is by definition a CPU
that will fit in a single socket that contains two CPU dies within. AMD and
Intel have taken two different approaches to bringing dual core processors to
its consumers. Intel's approach was to take two of its sucessful P4 processors
and marry them together by creating the bus and pipelines to allow communication.
AMD's approach began at the birth of the AMD 64. AMD designed its 64 bit processor
from inception with dual cores in mind. While both companies were waiting for
the 90nm process to allow manufacturing of these chips feasible the prices are
still high as you will later see. I can see you asking now "How is this
any different from a dual processor setup?" The answer is simply "a
great deal different".

Dual Core vs. Dual Processor

Dual processor setups were the only way to go for many years if you were in
need of serious computing power. Architechs, engineers, graphic artists, and
even gamers desiring the ultimate in power could utilize a dual processor setup.
In such a setup each core is able to perform computational tasks so long as
the application supports two processors. These processors communicate with eachother
through a bus on the motherboard in their sharing of loads. Intel and AMD have
both realized the performance limiter in any dual processor setup was the communication
lag between the processors. Each company has sought to eliminate that lag by
encorporating another processor on the same die, thus eliminating 99% of the
lag time in communication. The difference between AMD and Intel is that Intel
stopped there and AMD thought ahead. Why eliminate the communication gap between
the processors when there also exists a significant lag in commincation between
the processor and the memory controller. With the launch of the AMD 64, AMD
incorporated the north bridge into the chip thus greatly improving memory bandwidth
and lowering memory latency. The move to dual core brings all of the benefits
of a dual processor setup and also the elimination of considerable bottlenecks
and latency. While Intel's dual core processor will come in two varieties the
Pentium Extreme Edition and the Pentium D, AMD's dual core will arrive under
the name AMD 64 Athlon X2 and will continue their performance rating system.